March 28 (Bloomberg) -- NATO picked former Norwegian Prime
Minister Jens Stoltenberg as its next civilian leader, as the
western military alliance confronts a more assertive Russia and
winds down the war in Afghanistan.

Stoltenberg, 55, will become the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s 13th secretary general and first Norwegian to
hold the post, representatives of the 28 allies decided today in
Brussels. He will take over from Anders Fogh Rasmussen of
Denmark in October for a term of four years.

Stoltenberg, a trained economist who at the start of his
political career campaigned for Norway to exit the U.S.-led
alliance, was prime minister from 2000 to 2001 and again from
2005 until losing elections last year. Today he denounced
Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s southern Crimea region, while
saying the alliance isn’t out to antagonize the Kremlin.

“What we have seen in Ukraine just reminds us of how
important NATO is,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Oslo. “The
idea of NATO’s collective defense is becoming even more
important when we see how Russia is using force to change
borders in Europe.”

Founded in 1949 to resist the Soviet Union, the trans-Atlantic alliance reinvented itself as a policeman of the
Balkans during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. It went further
afield, to Afghanistan, after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the
U.S.

NATO’s drawdown from Afghanistan, possibly entailing a
complete pullout by the end of the year, also coincides with
declines in European defense spending and the paring of the
Pentagon budget after increases for the Iraq and Afghan wars.

Crimea Annexation

The alliance has repeatedly condemned Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea and stepped up its military
presence in eastern European countries that joined the alliance
after a half-century under Soviet domination.

“Recent events in Ukraine have underlined that, even once
we complete our mission in Afghanistan, there will be new
challenges to respond to,” U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron
said in a statement. He said Stoltenberg will bring a “wealth
of experience” to the job.

Norway shares a 196-kilometer (122-mile) border with
Russia, leading to a relationship with the Kremlin that is at
times cooperative, at times competitive.

In 2010, Stoltenberg settled a territorial dispute with
Russia over access to gas and oil deposits in the Barents Sea
and Arctic Ocean. The two sides agreed on a demarcation of the
seabed and pledged to develop energy deposits in the border area
jointly.

Oil Riches

“A strong NATO is also needed for a dialogue with
Russia,” Stoltenberg said. “Norway has a long experience of
dialogue with Russia.”

Oil has made Norway one of Europe’s richest countries.
Stoltenberg tapped oil revenues to shield the country from the
recessions that gripped Europe after the outbreak of the
financial crisis in 2008.

At the same time, Stoltenberg helped put in place fiscal
rules that limit the government to using a maximum of 4 percent
of Norway’s $850 billion sovereign wealth fund to pad budgets.

The son of a Norwegian foreign minister, Stoltenberg
studied economics at the University of Oslo. He and his wife
Ingrid Schulerud have two children, son Axel and daughter Anne
Catharina. Stoltenberg entered Norway’s parliament in 1993 and
also served as trade and energy minister and finance minister.
He has led the Labor Party since 2002.

Island Killings

On July 22, 2011, Norway went through its biggest peacetime
trauma, when extremist Anders Behring Breivik set off a car bomb
in the Oslo government district and went on a shooting rampage
on a nearby island, killing 77, mostly teenagers.

Stoltenberg preached against vengeance. He was later forced
to defend his government’s failure to prevent the attack after
an inquiry found deficient leadership at key institutions and
“unacceptable” delays as the tragedy unfolded.

Stoltenberg said the U.S. sounded out Norway’s government
in January over the possible appointment. His selection by NATO
national ambassadors today contrasted with the intrigue and
high-level diplomacy that surrounded the naming of Rasmussen,
then Denmark’s prime minister, in 2009.

At his first NATO summit, President Barack Obama had to
overcome Turkey’s objections to Rasmussen because of the Danish
leader’s defense of a newspaper’s right to publish cartoons
lampooning Islam.

European Chief

Rasmussen was the first sitting prime minister to be picked
to run the alliance. He had backed the Bush administration’s
“war on terror” by sending Danish forces to Iraq and
Afghanistan over domestic opposition.

In Brussels this week, Obama praised Rasmussen, 61, for
“extraordinary work.” Rasmussen played a role in the buildup
and drawdown in Afghanistan and in the alliance’s air war over
Libya in 2011.

NATO’s civilian chief is traditionally a European while the
military headquarters is run by an American. The current supreme
military commander is U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove,
in a line tracing back to Dwight Eisenhower.